May I ask you something?" I say. "Why do you read books, when you could be outside, living a million different adventures every day?" "Because you can always count on a book to stay the same. EVerything else changes when you least expect it," she replies, bitter. "Families split apart, and nothing's forever. In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.

I closed my eyes and curled my fists around the things I knew for sure: That a scallop has thirty-five eyes, all blue. That a tuna will suffocate if it ever stops swimming. That I was loved. That this time, it was not me who broke

You can't look back - you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.

You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever

Shooting stars are not stars at all. They re just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction. What we wish on when we see one is only a trail of debris.

What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in the stars.

I know what it's like when the things you believe make you feel like you're on the outside looking in.